Blizzard has ruled out the possibility of it ever introducing LAN support into Starcraft 2 - saying its new 'always online' Battle.net system does a comparable job.
Speaking to CVG as part of an interview we'll post next week, Starcraft 2 lead designer Chris Sigaty said Blizzard wanted to get away from the impression that Battle.net is only for the hardcore player.
When CVG asked if there was any chance LAN support would be introduced down the line, he said: "No. We've made the choice at this point that we're not including LAN. The biggest part of this is when you look back, we changed the feel of Starcraft 2 around getting away from Battle.net being this place you go up to do the hardcore gaming. You're always connected and you're always on Battle.net.
"The experience is shared as much as you want with friends, but those things are tracked as you do it and we felt like staying connected is a part of that, so that's been our main driving force. You don't have to worry about going and clicking the scary Battle.net button to go do that and login. As a part of that, we feel like LAN is not a necessary feature."
We expect the release of Starcraft 2 to arrive in the first half of 2010.